Wednesday, November 10, 2010

I wish we could make these up, gang. I really really do. But we get these emails. How many are Poes and how many are the real crazy? All I can tell you from experience (as I'm willing to bet we at AETV are on the receiving end of Poe-age more than most) is that when people Poe us, they're usually very nudge-wink obvious about it (like, they really overdo the misspellings, cap locks, and 1's in place of !'s), and they pretty much always wrap up with "Haha! Just kidding, I'm an atheist too! Your show rocks! Keep up the good work!", as if we'd actually just been masterfully punked.

So, when we get something like this, it's usually the real deal.

Death doesn’t exist. The plan after death is like this we live. When people die they see their clothes, their utensils, objects and common residences, buildings, houses, flats. There is no more masons, doctors, manufacturing cooks handling with matter, because this plan is mental.

(Indeed it is. —MW) You only need mind power and the work is done. Food, clothes, cars, modern objects is all the same. This plan is like here, no bureaucracy e everyboby deals with his reality, creates it, sceneries, nature by his own. We, the living beings, the plants, everything remains. Everybody can create his reality, for example: A person has a thought car. We think even buildings and make them exist. In order to avoid destruction in case of strikes is the same situation. They multiplied to a number of 849 billion people, all is possible there. I believe changes will begin in 2012 and will end in 2014. The Earth will be spiritual, a state of mind. In this plan, there are no myths, no mythology, only human beings and their will expanding to other planets. You have sex with a person in the shape you want.

I just knew he was leading up to a big finish there.

Face this fact: there are deeply, epically irrational humans in the world. And they write to us! So, you know, we really need some hugs about now. In whatever shape you want.

I think it's a fake. I make stuff up like this all the time... in fact i have a blog dedicated to whatever tongue-in-cheek conspiracy theories and nonsensical ideas about reality I come up with (or combine what I've actually heard from some nuts) It's great fun and I've actually confused some people enough that they've asked me if it's real... out of good conscious I tell them it is for entertainment and humor. But if I were like a television evangelist there could very well be some money in it.

A friend of mine told me about a "spiritual awakening" of the world that would begin in 2012, but this guy's story seems even more crazy.

So there's a afterlife that seems to be just like our world, just without all the bad stuff. And between 2012 and 2014, earth and this afterlife-world will somehow fuse together, or earth will become like the afterlife, or... whatever. This plan does indeed sound mental.

(He did mean to say "plane", right?)

Basically he describes how he would like reality/the afterlife to be and then throws delusion at this idea until he believes that his ideas are fact.

Mythnam: I doubt it. Keeping Poe-age going takes more effort than most people are willing to put in. If you see consistency, then it's the real crazy, unless you're someone who's decided to make a career of it like Landover Baptist.

The thing about Poe's Law that I find goddamned annoying is that it seems to have given lots of otherwise smart people the immensely idiotic idea that there are not, in fact, any actual crazy people alive anywhere in the world at all, or if there are, they are incapable of using computers. And so if you see someone being totally bananapants crazy on the internet, it's always going to be some clever jokester just having shits and giggles.

All Poe's Law actually says is that it's impossible to parody religious fundamentalism in such a way that it's any crazier than what actual fundamentalists often believe. People who make the "oh this has gotta be a Poe" response to every example of online lunacy they encounter haven't thought through what this implies. It isn't that the crazier someone's rant is, the more likely it is to be fake; in fact it implies the opposite.

Martin said: "All Poe's Law actually says is that it's impossible to parody religious fundamentalism in such a way that it's any crazier than what actual fundamentalists often believe."

The idea being that a Poe and some instance of the real thing are equally insane, and therefore, it's very hard to discern one from the other. I do not see anywhere in this definition that the crazier the text, the more likely it is that it's a Poe; nor do I see this a logical implication of the concept.

Following that, I don't see how it's erroneous to assume one over the other when, as far as my non mathematical mind can tell, it's impossible to establish odds of a particular piece of writing being one or the other.

That all being said, I'm acutely aware, as is (I'd wager) everyone else who engages in this sort of discussion, that there are, in fact, people out there who ARE this crazy, or this delusional.

Mentally unstable (or possibly sane but miseducated) people incorporate current news and developments into their delusion framework. So, it's not so far-fetched that this person could have indeed "watched Inception", as another comment above states. I've witnessed one person who just adopts fictional accounts from entertainment movies based on urban legends. To these people, such films become indistuingishable from documentary.I suspect it's a similar mindset at work in the reverse: delusional people produce films that depict purely fictional events and entities, but not for a moment doubt that what they're making is a documentary film, since they assume that the original fiction their film is based on is a factual report.This would lead to a film industry where completely batshit crazy people work productively hand in hand with perfectly sane co-workers, on all levels. And as far as I can see, that's exactly what we have.

Of course that same mindset would facilitate mocking any actual documentation or even scientific papers as fictional - as "fairytales for grownups", as our all-favorite street evangelist is comfortable saying.They simply never understood how to work out the difference.

A guy once told me (apparently in all seriousness)that arguing that god doesn't exist is ridiculous because accepting the non-existence of god is the start of theology. You then have to accept that god neither exists nor doesn't exist but rather is existence itself.

if I were like a television evangelist there could very well be some money in it.

I've thought about this myself. I think I could be a great preacher if only I could ditch this annoying conscience of mine. It's all a matter of just turning your critical faculties off and your mouth on.

Sometimes it's amazing what comes out of your mouth when you don't bother thinking about whether what you're saying is actually true.

A guy once told me (apparently in all seriousness)that arguing that god doesn't exist is ridiculous because accepting the non-existence of god is the start of theology. You then have to accept that god neither exists nor doesn't exist but rather is existence itself."

I'm saddened by the lack of critical thinking shown in these e-mails you post to the blog. Many people nowadays are denying traditional religion, but that doesn't mean they are automatically more rational than believers. Many of them are simply being taken into this new-agey crap instead. It's no better than religion in terms of applying rational thought to their beliefs.

I've done some Poe-age myself in the past, but my position is always to assume that the comments are real unless there are the telltale signs of satire, or the person comes out and flat-out says it was a joke (and sometimes, not even then; see "Christian side-hug" and "Ray Comfort's banana").

When it comes to disbelieving that people can be this nuts, my mind always goes back to Ray Comfort. Despite everything that makes me want to believe that he's an elaborate Andy Kaufman-style hoax, he appears to be genuinely both that dumb and that dishonest. And there are people who not only believe him, but see his evangelism style as something to emulate.

And that's why I never think it's a Poe until there's some good reason beyond "boy, this is nuts."

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PLEASE NOTE: The Atheist Experience has moved to a new location, and this blog is now closed to comments. To participate in future discussions, please visit http://www.freethoughtblogs.com/axp.The Atheist Experience is a weekly live call-in television show sponsored by the Atheist Community of Austin. This independently-run blog (not sponsored by the ACA) features contributions from current and former hosts and co-hosts of the show.